Cold Hearted (Kris Bryant)

Light in the Darkness

Kehlani

As finals start up I start to pack my away the things I wouldn't need for the last week of school. By Friday I would have completed my first whole year of college on the deans list and maybe even changed my major, who knows?

As I pack all my things into a suitcase I have time to think about what the past 9 months of my life had brought me. A lot of surprises that's for sure, but along with it came a lot of love and growth and dare I say, happiness. This cold heart of mine is melting because I have someone who shines brighter than the sun who is completely obsessed with me and is always shining down on me, sharing the light with me wherever we go.

"Are you excited to be staying in Vegas for the summer" Kris asks as he helps me fold my clothes because I hated doing it. Well, I hated doing it alone at least.

"I am. I miss your parents, they're both super cool and had nothing but the best things to say about Vegas" I explain.

"You're gonna love it there. It's nothing like New York besides the fact that a lot of people visit. But these people come to the city ready to be disappointed" he teases.

"Those are my kind of people" I wink.

After I finish packing I get ready for one last final. My art final. We had to present our projects and somehow Kris talked my professor into letting him come and watch. From the very beginning Kris had been so supportive of my art. He's the only reason I actually opened up and approached it and the only reason I continue to chase these dreams that I had forgotten about up until a few months ago.

So we head over to my art class and he sits down in the back so he wasn't bothering anyone who was actually in this class with me. The professor insists I go first and I have no real problem with that. I kinda like going first.

So I pick up my piece that I haven't really shown anyone and take it to the front of the class. I turn to see a bunch of faces, but I see one that stands out more than the others. And it belonged to my wonderful boyfriend who I repented the first part of the year, feared for the second part, and loved endlessly in the end. He smiles big at me making me smile back. It made what I was about to do that much easier.

"I call this piece... Light In The Dark.

For the longest time my mind was dark, for a decade I just couldn't seem to find the light. I didn't want to be happy, I thought being happy was being weak. Everything that makes us happy isn't actually real. Relationships end, money comes and goes, you lose at games and everything you know isn't what you think it is. Why would I be fake happy when I can have something real even if it's sad?

So I let the darkness consume me. I myself became dark and cold. And while the dark is necessary in anyone's life, too much of it is not good. I turned into someone that no one wanted to be around. I let the world make me cold, so cold that that I was frozen while life went on around me. My heart was so fragile, like cracked ice that the slightest thing caused it to break even more.

Then not too far away I saw a light in my darkness. At first I tried to get my darkness to dim the light but it was no match. For this light was nothing but pure energy and cannot be contained, it was its own entity and it was powerful. And overtime the light got brighter and brighter and brighter until I could no longer hide it behind a dark cloud. Eventually the light because so bright that it started to become a part of me.

And now we're here, where I stand in front of you. Now the light of my life is my boyfriend and he's gotten me to see the light in the darkness. Well, he is the light in my darkness. This painting is a representation of that light. And while we all don't have the same one, we all have one. That one thing that there is no denying, nor ignoring or suppressing. For me it was a person. So I painted something that means a lot to me, to us. A little garden where we shared some of our best memories. And there's a couple on the bench, the girl resting her head on the mans shoulder. I only painted the man in color to show how even in the brightest of the places, he still shines the brightest. Even the flowers can't compare to the light that this man brings" I explain.

The class claps as I finish my presentation but I don't really hear them as my eyes rest on just one person. It was my person sitting in the back of the room not clapping because he was making a hands into the shape of a heart. I smile big as I think back to when I went to his scrimmage game all those days back and he pointed me out of the crowed because I was the only one not clapping. In that moment I was pretty shocked as he was feeling now. In those moments neither of us really knew what was going to happen next. We just knew it was going to be something big.

After the class ends I stay back to talk to my professor. She's been a mentor to me all semester and she got me into that awesome program next semester. She tells me some things I can do over the summer to get ready and I ask her a few more questions before it was time for us to leave.

"It was nice to finally meet you Kris" she smiles.

"You too. Thanks for helping Lani out with everything. It's greatly appreciated" Kris says.

And with that we leave back to my dorm. I grab my things and bring them over to his place. We weren't leaving just yet, but I was staying with him until we did leave.

I set my things next to his before going to his window. I look across and see my old dorm room all empty and let out a sigh.

"You were amazing today" Kris mentions as he wraps his arms around my waist. I lean into his chest as he holds me tight.

"Thank you. That means a lot coming from you" I admit.

"Can I keep that painting" he wonders.

"You really want that" I question.

"Yeah. Its my light" he claims and I smile.

How lucky am I?